


Mac and Dennis Die

by Pussyhands



Series: Dumb Kids [10]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Ableism, Afterlife, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bisexual Dennis Reynolds, Bottom Dennis Reynolds, Canon-Typical Gang Behavior, Choking, Confessions, Death, Dennis is still a bastard man, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Heavy Angst, High Drama, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Love Confessions, M/M, MacDennis - Freeform, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Rough Sex, Suicide, Top Mac McDonald
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:53:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24817165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pussyhands/pseuds/Pussyhands
Summary: Mac and Dennis are dead. So what do they have to lose if they confess everything they’ve been holding back all these years?
Relationships: Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Series: Dumb Kids [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689493
Comments: 25
Kudos: 58





	1. The Death of Froggy

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Season 14. There's a death in this chapter so skip if needed. 
> 
> The whole things sort of all about death though so avoid if triggering.

“We’re rich, bitches!!!”

Mac and Dennis stumble into their apartment. They’ve been yelling and laughing and singing and hooting and even free styling for a week straight. Ever since Frank died.

* * *

A long time ago, bets were placed on the specific mode of Frank’s demise. Dennis and Charlie had bet that he would die of old age, in his own pull-out bed, peacefully, friends and family gathered around to say their goodbyes and offer some last words of comfort. 

Charlie thought it would be like this because he was an optimist, and he just wanted his father/friend to have a peaceful death. He didn’t care about the DNA test anymore, because he was pretty sure he was, effectively, Frank’s son, and in the slim chance that he wasn’t, he didn’t want to know. Frank had been good to him, and not many people had.

Dennis thought it would go down like that because he was a pessimist, and he knew justice rarely, if ever, occurs in this world. Frank would die the idyllic death he denied so many people, dismembered and simmering in a Vietnamese soup. No. He wouldn’t let him have that. He, Dennis, would join in the mourners and, since Frank would be bedridden and unable to do anything about it, he would unload decades of trauma and abuse on him. Make his death as awful as possible. 

Dennis would sometimes work on his speech, sitting at the bar when there was nothing else to do. His childhood recriminations were easy. He’d been stewing in them for more than forty years. He remembered every slight, every mean-spirited prank, every abusive word, every abandonment. He would list them all to Frank, and watch him squirm and plead: “Dennis! no more! I get it! I was a terrible father! I was the worst! You deserved so much more! I, and I alone, am the reason your life turned out like this. You were meant to do great things, but I dragged you down, with my evil and degenerate ways. I’m just a disgusting troll, and you’re a golden god. Will you ever forgive me?”. 

Then came Dennis’ favorite part, the part where he would lean into Frank’s space, like he was maybe going to stroke his evil little goblin head and kiss his forehead while he wiped away his tears, only to look deep into his beady eyes and say “No Frank. I don’t forgive you”. The image of Frank’s face, coming to the realization that he’d screwed up his whole life, that he’d just been a ridiculous little shit, without one redeeming quality, despised by his children and everyone who had ever known him, gave him great comfort, and accompanied him as he went about his day, making him smile and chuckle softly at intervals. 

The only problem with the recurring daydream of his revenge was that he didn’t know if he should include certain things, like Frank’s brief stint as his pimp, in his recriminations. On the one hand, Frank pimping him out sounded incredibly sleazy and exactly what an abusive father would do, but on the other hand, characterizing it as abuse painted Dennis as a victim of sexual violence, and that was something Dennis decidedly was not. He was, if anything, a victimizer. He guessed he’d get to it when he got to it.

Dee and Mac, on the other hand, believed that Frank would die a sordid and violent death. Stabbed under a bridge, from a heart attack while banging a hoor, in an overdose, or in any combination of the three. Getting hit by a car while drunk, choking on his own vomit, wasted and playing with his gun. There were so many stupid and terrible ways for Frank to die. 

Mac thought this because he was an optimist. He knew God would punish the wicked, no matter how belatedly. He would righteously strike down Frank in a grotesque and gruesome manner, as an example to his sinful friends, and they would immediately recognize the error of their ways and repent. Dee would denounce abortion and the misguided belief that women had rights. Charlie would lead a more upstanding life, with maybe less glue and more gym. Dennis would become a better person, and as a better person, he would learn to accept love into his life, specifically, Mac’s love. 

He ‘d come up to him, maybe during the funeral, and declare his everlasting devotion. There _was_ going to be a funeral. Partly because throwing Frank in the trash required who knew what legal finagling that no one was willing to do, and partly because he didn’t want one. Dennis would go down on one knee in front of everyone, right before the eulogy, and ask for Mac’s hand in marriage. “I know I don’t deserve you Mac, because you’re such a righteous, manly badass, and I’m just a spiteful, effeminate little bitch” his voice rising dramatically now “but I’m begging you, I can’t live without you! So, Mac McDonald: will you marry me?” Mac would pretend to consider it for a second and then accept, and Dennis would slip an incredibly expensive but masculine diamond ring around his finger. Then they would bang on top of Frank’s coffin, Mac on top of course, with the whole funeral party watching and cheering him on, thinking about what an awesome badass he was, and that was his favorite part of the daydream.

Dee thought Frank would die a violent death because she was a pessimist, and she knew she would never get the chance to convey to him just how much he’d hurt her. How he’d never been there when she needed a friend, a protector, a father. How he’d methodically whittled away at her self-esteem for years, leaving her an insecure and unstable husk of a woman. How he had been the one and only reason her acting career never took off. Dee knew she would never get justice, because justice wasn’t available to her. Justice had her sitting outside it’s door for more than forty years now, and it would never let her in. Always expect the worst. That was Dee ́s mantra.

And so, with Dennis and Charlie on one side, and Dee and Mac on the other, they’d placed their bets, wagering a ridiculous amount of money none of them had but all of them were supposing they’d inherit from Frank. Getting Frank’s money was an absurd belief, one that none of them gave much credit to, but it was fun, and it was comforting to think about Frank’s death, and it was something to do. So, they signed on it. Mac trying to sign in his own blood and the rest of the gang recoiling from his impressive collection of super viruses acquired during a lifetime of not believing in condoms. Charlie signed as “Cringly”, and each of them thought that they could use that to cheat him out of his earnings if he won.

After all these theories and daydreams and plans, Frank’s way of death, being the carbon copy of his recent almost death, took them all by complete surprise. It was a slow Friday night at Paddy’s, and the gang was discussing the legality of owning a tank. 

After the fact, none of them could remember who had been on which side, or why the issue had seemed so important. All they remembered was that the discussion had become incredibly heated, with Charlie grabbing his head in frustration and screaming, Mac threatening them with violence, Dee smashing glasses against the bar and Dennis wondering how much poison he would have to get his hands on to kill them all. The whole while Frank had been sitting on a stool, methodically eating circus peanuts, spitting the husks at everything and nothing, and looking completely like an overweight, underdeveloped, gorilla. 

It took them a while to hear the choking, since their discussion had devolved into incoherent shouting long ago, but when they did, Mac, Dennis and Dee stopped dead in their tracks, to look at Frank with the same impassive faces they had at the restaurant, just under a year ago.

For the Reynolds twins, watching Frank die in front of them was the culmination of a lifetime of resentment and hate. It was their happy ending, no matter how he went. But. The most beautiful part, the part that felt like justice, or better, like revenge, was that they got to look him right in the eye, the whole way through.

Mac looked from Dennis to Frank and from Frank to Dennis, as Frank hacked and sputtered and became progressively redder, until his face was a deep shade of purple. He didn’t care either way, if Frank lived or died. He didn’t even think about it. Mac’s mind could only grapple with one dilemma at a time, and right now, the fight that was waging inside it was between waiting for Dennis’ instructions and showing initiative. Both were things Dennis had demanded of him in the past, and so he was at a standstill. The two options canceled each other out. In doubt, do nothing.

Charlie, on the other hand, had learnt his lesson. He rushed over to Frank and pried his mouth open, sticking his whole hand in, like he was trying to dislodge a chicken bone from a dog’s throat. Since that only seemed to worsen the situation, he suddenly remembered there was a maneuver for this, and so, Frank Reynolds drew his last breaths. While being ineffectually humped from behind by his alleged son, as his other three pseudo children looked on, none of them moving a single muscle.

* * *

The second surprise was at the lawyer’s office. Frank had split his fortune evenly in four, and had left the totality of it to Mac, Charlie, Dee and Dennis. Incredulity, suspicion and then complete euphoria overtook them as the lawyer listed off their new assets. They were rich beyond their wildest dreams, they had everything they could ever want. Even a fourth of Frank’s money was enough to set them up for life, and beyond, set up their children and their _children’s_ children if any of them had had any (Brian Jr. didn’t count. Dennis was pretty sure he had a new dad by now).

Their lives, since that fateful day, had become an orgy of reckless spending, substance abuse and degeneracy. They bought a luxury yacht. They bought a limousine. They bought a Harley, a Hummer, and a motherfucking tank. They bought and smashed ten thousand-dollar bottles of brandy. They booked the best rooms in the best hotels and they wrecked them and then they booked them again. They dangled hundred-dollar bills in front of Cricket and got him to do outrageous things, and then they burnt them in front of him. They got pedicures and manicures and massages with happy endings. They bought out Fatty Magoo’s store and burnt it to the ground. They got samurai swords and medieval swords and machetes and knives. They got the fancy industrial glue. Various high-end whores were hired, of all genders and nationalities. Rivers of alcohol, mountains of crack, and a ten-foot high crucifix made of solid gold.

Eventually their more than four decades on earth had made themselves manifest, in sore limbs, aching heads, upset stomachs and burning genitals, and despite the various stimulants being consumed, they had all retired to what would soon be their old apartments to get some rest.

That’s where we find Mac and Dennis, stumbling in and smashing some living room nick-knacks in the process.

Dennis falls face down across his bed as Mac downs half a liter of water at the kitchen sink. He‘s just shuffling off to his room, to sleep for a week straight, when he hears Dennis call out his name. “Mac! Mac I feel like shit”. Of course he did, he was coming down from all the crack he’d smoked all week, and there was no leftover crack to take the edge off. “Will you sleep in my bed with me?”. Mac felt like his life couldn’t get any better. This was it, this was the payoff for forty years trying to do right by the Lord. Even when they had sex, Dennis usually kicked him out of his bed after, sending him to lay awake in his room, yearning and pinning and repenting until sleep overtook him. Everything was about to change, everything was gonna be better.

Dennis was already in bed when Mac entered, so he stripped down to his underwear and jumped below the covers, making the whole bed shake. He didn’t even have time to try and spoon Dennis before he fell asleep, and he dreamt of waking up in Cancun with Dennis by his side, in a huge billowy bed made with million thread sheets of the whitest white, surrounded by soft, puffy clouds, like they were in heaven, ready to live out the rest of their lives in wealth and luxury, together.


	2. Cancun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Mac awoke, 17 hours later, he wasn’t in Cancun, and there was no tropical sun gently shining through the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the emerald sea, but it didn’t matter. Because he woke up to Dennis looking at him, propped up on his elbow and softly tracing the muscles on his chest.
> 
> “We’re free”
> 
> is what Dennis says when he sees Mac’s eyes flutter open, and Mac knows exactly what he means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More death coming up, but don't worry, death is not the end.
> 
> trigger warning for death, sexual violence (sort of, at the end)

When Mac awoke, 17 hours later, he wasn’t in Cancun, and there was no tropical sun gently shining through the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the emerald sea, but it didn’t matter. Because he woke up to Dennis looking at him, propped up on his elbow and softly tracing the muscles on his chest. 

“We’re free”

is what Dennis says when he sees Mac’s eyes flutter open, and Mac knows exactly what he means. 

If Frank hadn’t appeared, Paddy’s would have gone under in no more than a few years, if that. Dee would have been liberated from what Mac just now realized was the gang’s appalling treatment of her, free to pursue her impossible dream of celebrity and stardom. And sure, she never would have had become a famous actress, but she would have had a better life without them slow but steadily chipping away at her self-esteem. Same with Charlie. He would have had to get another janitor job, somewhere else, and without Frank’s endless supply of money, he would have had to clean up, stop sniffing so much glue. He would have learnt to read. He still believed in his friend, he would have gotten better.

And Mac. Mac used to think, before he came out, that he himself would have settled down and eventually gotten married. He would have had a couple of kids and gotten work as a stuntman, or a bouncer, or a guard. Gone to church with his family every Sunday and taken them and Mrs. Mac to see grandpa up in jail, where Luther would receive them proudly, never forgetting to tell Mac he loved him, for being such a badass and heterosexual son. This dream had crumbled after the lottery ticket mediation, but there was another, more sincere, more precious dream to take its place.

The dream of Dennis. Dennis, who was now looking into his eyes, his own full of hope and tenderness.

“So what do you wanna do?” He asked, and Dennis got that gleam in his eyes, the gleam that belonged to someone much younger, the same gleam from twenty-five years ago. Sharing a joint on the Range Rover’s hood, the sunset coloring his hair golden, when he’d leaned towards Mac and locked his lips with his, for the very first time. 

How stupid Mac had been, how stupid and scared. He’d broken the kiss as soon as his brain could react to what was happening, and he’d run the whole way home, leaving a stunned Dennis to sit on his hood as it got darker and darker outside. It was one of those times that Luther wasn’t in jail, instead he was sitting at the kitchen table with two of his associates, carefully weighing and dividing up little packets of crystals. As Mac ran by, up the stairs and into his room, he could hear them 

“What’s wrong with your kid Luther?”

“Probably had a fight with his boyfriend”

Laughter. 

Again, for the millionth time in his life, Mac would vow to never see Dennis again. And that time his resolve had lasted for two whole weeks, until Dennis came down from college to visit, light and breezy like nothing had happened (or like what had happened hadn’t upended his whole life. Maybe it hadn’t, maybe that was just Mac). Mac opened his front door with a speech on his lips, about heaven and degeneracy and never wanting to see Dennis again, all the hits. He hadn’t counted on Dennis standing there, looking like Dennis, huge sparkling smile. “Wanna go for a beer?” And just like that, his speech was forgotten, and he followed him out. Sometimes Mac felt he’d spent all his life following Dennis, with a speech at the tip of his tongue. 

Now Dennis keeps his hand on Mac’s chest as they softly kiss.

“I love you”.

It was the second time Mac had said it to a fully conscious Dennis. A small smile escaped from Dennis’ lips, and as he answered,

“I know”

Mac melted into the bed. 

He had never expected him to say it back, not even a little bit. That part of Mac was surprisingly dead. Now, it was enough for Mac to know he knew. After all, the only “I love you” he’d ever gotten was from his father in the form of a letter, and that was a long time ago. Mac was coming to terms with the fact that nobody loved him, and maybe nobody ever would, but he could have close enough with Dennis. And close enough with Dennis was better than the real deal with anybody else.

Dennis caressed his face as they deepened the kiss, looking into each other’s eyes as their bodies melted together, like they were made to correspond with each other, two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. No one else could fit with either of them, no one else but Dennis, no one else but Mac. They’d just jam and bump against other people. Mac knew it, and as he moaned into Dennis’ open mouth, he wondered how it was possible that Dennis didn’t.

Dennis’ hand wandered down to stroke Mac, who was, as always, already hard. Mac just wanted to look into each other’s eyes for all eternity, lazily kissing and touching Dennis like he had all the time in the world. Like they weren’t drunk in a bathroom or high in the alley, between the stinking bags of garbage and Mac’s homophobia. Like they were two grown men in their own apartment, doing whatever they wanted because they could. It had taken Mac his whole life to get to this point, to realize he had the right to be exactly who he was in the world. He wished it’d happened thirty years ago. He’d wasted so much time, he felt his life was just beginning. 

But Dennis never let these moments last too long before he made them sexual. He had used up his capacity for tenderness a long time ago and Mac, Mac just took whatever he could get. 

Dennis got up to straddle and grind his hips against him, as Mac ran his hands down his sides, so softly, so delicately, like he was touching the body of Christ. There was no talking between them as Dennis reached beyond Mac’s head for the ties that were by now permanently attached to his bed. They were good, quality leather restraints, and Mac knew Dennis liked to use them, on himself or others, depending on the mood. Dennis took Mac’s hands and pulled them upwards as he fastened the straps around his wrists. He didn’t need to ask, he never asked Mac, and that was just the way things were.

Dennis was struck with awe as he looked down at Mac, captive. He looked like a marble statue beneath him. He’d never expected him to get hotter in his middle age, in fact, when Mac got fat it felt right to Dennis, like he was fulfilling his role, until his goddamn sleep apnoea and sweaty binge eating got to him. Dennis would never say this, but he felt grateful and important, that he got to fuck someone who looked like that. It was every beautiful big breasted woman he’d ever had or lusted after, only it was a man, and he had hard muscles instead of soft curves, and he was his, more than any woman had ever been.

Dennis wasn’t talking about Dee or Charlie when he said they were free. He didn’t give a shit about what happened to them. He wasn’t talking about Mac that much either. Lying awake, watching Mac snore, Dennis had felt liberated. He’d never known Frank was so important to him, he’d never realized Frank’s presence was a like a dark shadow, following him around his whole life, doling out taunts and judgement even when he wasn’t there, and so when he died, it was as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders, a weight he had been carrying his whole life. He hadn’t known it was there and now he couldn’t understand how he’d carried it for so long. 

Now that Frank was gone, Dennis was gonna take this marble statue beneath him and he was gonna make it his husband. He was gonna keep it forever. Dennis was going to live his life on exactly his own terms. 

Mac looked up at him worshipful as Dennis prepped himself and slowly descended on Mac’s engorged cock. They didn’t exchange a word as Dennis began to move on top of him. It was one of those times when everything fit together perfectly, when everything made sense. No one needed to negotiate, to convince, to beg. Just get lost in the moment. Just get lost in each other. All Mac needed in the world was to watch Dennis come undone on top of him, because it was when he looked most at ease with himself, most at home in the world. But Dennis needed more. He always needed more, and he wrapped his hands around Mac’s neck.

This was something else they sometimes did. Dennis liked to do a lot of things that simulated murder, or so Mac explained it to himself. Dennis himself knew that he felt nothing if there wasn’t an element of danger in the mix. Of power. Of ugly. He was old enough to know that what got him off in his sexual encounters wasn’t the sex so much as the chase. The tricking, convincing, the taking, the power. Mac had been tricked long ago, so other things had to be done to make it interesting.

Dennis believed that the only way to make somebody love him was to trick them. 

So, as Dennis’ grip tightened around his throat, and his eyes became focused, Mac didn’t feel afraid. It had taken a few years for him to get used to it, and a few more for him to start to enjoy it. It was true what he’d read on the internet after the first time Dennis did it, fucking him inside a chemical toilet, it did heighten your orgasm. But they always got to a point, when his vision was starting to darken, where Mac felt trapped and an overwhelming desire to escape, to breathe. It reminded him of working in that mail room with Charlie all those years ago, and it made the post orgasmic come down rather tense for him, trying to catch his breath, sputtering and wheezing, and it wasn’t ideal, but Mac was used to a lot of non-ideal things by now.

Above him, Dennis’ face was becoming red, his eyes small and watering, as if he were the one getting choked. Even then, Mac couldn’t help but muse on how beautiful he was, how perfect his eyes, his mouth, his nose, his whole fucking face and body. He knew him at his worst, and Dennis was still the prettiest man he’d ever seen in real life. 

He was slamming himself down on him now, intent and focused, and the sensations started to overwhelm Mac. Just as Dennis upped his pace and squeezed harder around his neck, Mac’s orgasm exploded through his whole body, stretched and pulled and constrained, feeling his release bubbling inside of his veins, and for a moment, his whole world was Dennis. 

But slowly, the feeling going up, as he was coming down, discomfort turned to fear, and fear, for the very first time, to panic, as the million tiny stars exploded in a million tiny supernovas, and the edges of his vision darkened and advanced. The last thought Mac ever thought was:

“I told him we should have had a safe word.”

...

“But it wouldn’t have worked though, cos I was getting choked”

Mac realizes he’s said the last part out loud, without any difficulty, immediately after he’s said it. There are no hands around his neck, and there’s no one on his dick. He’s standing up. He’s fully dressed. He's the middle of the living room. 

His first thought: Dennis gave me brain damage. He choked me so hard I’ll be condemned to black out and come to doing god knows what bullshit, just standing somewhere like a fucking moron for the rest of my life. That asshole! And anyway what day is it? It was sunny before and now it's cloudy? This is bullshit! And so, Mac goes into Dennis’ room to kick his ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I noticed these first two chapters hardly have any dialogue. Don't worry, that's gonna change on chapter three. Thank you for reading!


	3. Dennis is a Bastard Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dennis tries to clean up, things don't go as planed.

Dennis has come down and is sitting very still, with Mac still inside him, frozen. He knows what he did, and he knows that when he moves, it will set the rest of his life in motion. It will be a very different life. Now, he’s got to decide whether it will be a different life on the beaches of Bali, or in a jail cell next to Mac’s dad. 

He braces himself and puts two fingers to Mac’s neck, which is bruised an angry shade of red and purple. No pulse. Nothing. His last shreds of hope are swept away and dispersed to the winds.

Dennis hangs his head.

He sits in silence,

five minutes.

Ten minutes.

Dennis is medicated and sober. He’s in full control of himself. There’ll be a time for tears. A time for regret. Right now, it’s time to think. He gets up and Mac’s still hard cock spills out of him. Dennis needs help.

After a halfhearted tug at Mac’s feet, he accepts that he’s never going to move 200 pounds of pure muscle and hair gel. And he needs to move him. He needs to put him in the Range Rover (and here he imagines him sitting in the front seat like so many times before, fiddling with the radio, smiling up at him. Block that out Dennis, save it for latter) and he needs to drive him off to somewhere, into the woods, into the river, somewhere rural Dennis has never been and can’t imagine. He needs to unload him there and bury him, or sink him, anything, so that no one will see his stupid face ever again. So that Dennis won’t see his face ever again. He pushes the thought away. Then, it’s off to Fiji, or Bali, Samoa, Barbados, anywhere, and let the mourning begin. 

He’ll mourn so hard, Mac will feel it in his grave. He’ll have a couple of young islanders who’ll come to his seaside villa to fuck him, but he’ll never talk to them, and he’ll never let them stay. He’ll eat the fish he catches himself in the crystalline sea, and he’ll climb the green mountains, alone. He’ll get ripped and slender and tan, and he’ll never tell anybody his secret. But he’ll mourn, oh, he’ll mourn alright, he’ll mourn the shit out of Mac, and he’ll stew and he’ll brood and he’ll be such a tragic figure. Maybe he’ll even write a book about it. 

All he has to do is find an accomplice.

This shouldn’t be so hard, he thinks as he paces the living room. I’m loaded, Frank would’ve had a guy I could hire. He’d have lots of guys, and they’d take him away, like this never happened and Mac was just at the gym, getting his pump on. But Dennis has no guys. He looks back on his life and he realizes there are only three people in it. 

Charlie, Dee, and Mac, his ride or die, lying dead and naked on his bed. 

Dee. He’s gotta call Dee. And so he does, again and again, until his phone becomes a blur, and he’s nearing full on hysteria. He started looking at pictures of tropical islands, then thought they could maybe track him like that, so he panicked and logged off all his social media. Dennis has read so much on this subject and now it’s all just a jumble. Reality has become fragmented, he feels like he's inescapably in the now, and he can't make sense of the pieces. The strange sense of clarity that overtook him after killing Mac ( _accidentally_ killing Mac, he makes sure to stress, if only for himself) has completely disappeared. Every minute that passes is like a weight attaching itself to Dennis' shoulders. What else does he have to do? Adrenaline won’t let him sit still, but he finds there’s nothing to really do outside of the bedroom, and he sure as shit ain’t going in there. 

For all his fascination with dead things, this is Mac after all, one of the very few people bestowed with humanity by Dennis. He can’t even bring himself to untie him, because if he doesn’t see him perhaps none of this is really happening. He feels a physical need for Dee to be here with him. She always was, even when he scared her, like with the crows. This can be like the crows. He calls again. 

Nothing.

Dennis doesn’t dare send a message, that’s how they catch you. It’s been a couple of hours. He could swear he's smelling Mac decompose in the other room. He’s drank all the alcohol in the house, smoked all the cigarettes he had stowed behind the cereal and seriously considered going out to find some crack. He must get away as fast as he can. And so, he calls Charlie.

* * *

Charlie had spent all week pushing Frank’s memory to the back of his head, but being in his apartment has made that a lot harder to do, so he’s been huffing glue and drinking since yesterday. He should never have come back, he should have gone to Mac and Dennis’, he thinks (or says loudly to himself ), even Dee’s would be better than sitting alone with Frank’s ghost. So he’s excited when Dennis calls, even if he does sound strange, like he’s struggling to get his voice out. Whatever, when is Dennis not strange nowadays. He wants him to come over and Charlie jumps at the invitation. It’s an excuse to get out of the apartment, and maybe they can sit and watch a movie or something. 

Maybe now Frank’s gone he should start patching up his friendship with Mac. He’s gotten progressively more annoying over the years, and he started off pretty annoying so he’s reaching critical levels, but it’s ok, Charlie’ll make it work. They may be weird and neurotic and pathetic, but Mac and Dennis are still his best friends. 

He can’t bring himself to let go of Frank completely though, so he grabs his gun on the way out on a sentimental whim. 

* * *

  
Dennis braces himself when he hears the door. Breathes deeply. He's in control again.

“Charlie there's been a slight problem”

Charlie can see it in his face in a second. This is something big, and this is Dennis' fault. For some reason the gang keep thinking he's stupid. It's cos I can't write, cos I can't do science stuff good, but I'm like, the smartest person I know. And, because he isn't so far off, he can read Dennis like a book. 

"What did you do Dennis” 

But Charlie knows he'll never win at words with him, so Dennis is left standing there, giving his pre-rehearsed speech to the door, while he barges in, going straight for the closest door in a burst of manic energy. Which is Dennis´ bedroom.

At first Charlie doesn’t understand. the black ropes, huge arms tied to the bed. The red and purple neck. But Charlie’s not stupid, Charlie gets it when he walks toward the headrest and sees Mac’s face, so still, eyes wide open, staring up at nothing.

Mac spent the whole of fifth grade making graphs about the best ways to die. It was supposed to be a badass thing, but to Charlie it was just a depressing thing, and Mac's complete commitment to ignoring reality just made it sadder. Now Charlie's first thought, is that this was never on any of the rankings, and that just makes everything worse.

He doesn’t even think about it, he just pulls Frank’s gun out of his jacket and points it at Dennis, who’s putting his hands up and starting to approach Charlie like he was a rabid animal that needed to be caught and put down. 

Well, Charlie thinks, he’s not gonna put _me_ down.

“What the fuck did you do Dennis?!” And Dennis wishes Charlie wasn’t so shrill. Dennis wishes Charlie wasn’t so excitable. He wishes Charlie wasn’t there, and above all, that he didn't have a gun. 

“Charlie it was an accident! I didn’t mean it! you know I didn’t mean it man, you know me!!”. Half of the terror in his voice comes from his fear of the gun. The other half comes from a well-studied catalog of emotions Dennis must juggle at all time.

“Of course you meant it! You’re a fucking psycho!”

“I’m not a psycho Charlie, I’ve got a personality disorder which...”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!”

Dennis has miscalculated. Of course he has. Charlie is Mac’s. He’s always been Mac’s. They’ve been best friends since they were five. They were each other’s refuge, all those years, spent in broken and abusive homes, with just each other as company. Dennis realizes just now that Mac was the original Dayman, “a master of karate and friendship”, and he feels so stupid. Charlie always says he hates Mac, but he says it in the same way Dennis says he hates Dee. Not really.

“What’d you do man?! He loved you!!” Charlie’s coming undone, but he's not letting go of the gun, and he’s not pointing away.

“I know he did Charlie”, Dennis is speaking very softly, like he imagines a professional would to a dangerous animal. "It was a mistake alright? I didn’t mean to do it, you have to understand”

“HE FUCKING LOVED YOU MAN!!”

Dennis is starting to worry, those yells could definitely be heard from the neighboring apartments, but Charlie’s rage quickly turns into sorrow and he’s violently weeping, wiping his tears on his shoulder because both of his hands are still steadying the cocked and loaded gun. 

“You know I patched him up when Luther beat him? HE PATCHED ME UP MAN! ALL THOSE TIMES!! He was my friend man! He was so stupid and annoying and just... ahhhhHHHGGG SO ANNOYING! BUT HE WAS MY FRIEND DENNIS!! He got me! And then you came along with your stupid sexy lips and your stupid sexy thighs and you took him away from me! He was your fucking lap dog man what more did you want huh?! WHAT MORE DID YOU WANT FROM HIM?!” 

Dennis makes a move to calm him down, and six bullets rip right through his chest, through his lungs, through his cold, empty heart.

* * *

  
“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT CHARLIE!!” He hears himself scream. But there’s no Charlie. He’s just standing in the middle of the living room, yelling at no one. And that’s when he gets jumped by Mac coming out of his room. 

“YOU FUCKING KILLED ME!!” 

And they’re rolling on the living room floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter before the storm.


	4. One Big Rape and Murder fest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One broken nose, two black eyes and lots of blood latter, Mac and Dennis are sitting on the floor, against the kitchen cabinets, trying to catch their breaths. It’s Dennis who first breaks the silence. 
> 
> “So... we’re definitely dead then”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has rough sex so skip if you're not into that.

One broken nose, two black eyes and lots of blood latter, Mac and Dennis are sitting on the floor, against the kitchen cabinets, trying to catch their breaths. It’s Dennis who first breaks the silence. 

“So... we’re definitely dead then”. 

“Well at least I am! You fucking killed me!” 

Mac’s voice is still as indignant as it was twenty minutes ago “for all I know you’re a demon who looks like Dennis here to torture me!”. Dennis starts. “What?! How am I a demon?!” “I don’t know man, I just know that I died having homo butt sex, I definitely get a torture demon”.

Dennis sighs. He wishes that were the case, and the real him was in his real apartment, _not_ calling Charlie. “No Mac, I’m dead too”, and he defeatedly opens his shirt to uncover six bullet holes, gaping and red, which he had no idea how he knew were there. “Holly shit man!” Mac turns completely towards him with his eyes wide open. “Do they hurt?”, and he makes a move to put a finger right through him, but Dennis slaps his hand away. “No it doesn’t hurt! does your neck hurt?” And Mac feels around his neck, where Dennis can see the awful red and purple bruises, the outline of his own, long fingered hands. “No” and then he seems to consider it. “So, you’re dead huh? Who killed you?” 

“Charlie”. 

Dennis stares at the floor. Mac won, Charlie’s his best friend after all. He feels tired, tired of the whole competition. He’s competed against Mac for what feels like his whole life, keeping a tally of who won what. It was way easier when Dennis was rich and Mac was poor. It was way, way easier when Mac slept with women. Now Mac has won the final round. He’s more comfortable in his own skin than ever, he’s getting mad dick as an out gay man, people finally like and _want_ him. It’s all true now, all his delusions. He’s everything Dennis saw himself as twenty years ago. 

Well, he _was_ everything, Dennis put a stop to that. Now that's really winning the final round baby, he almost says out loud, but there’s no joy in it. 

Because he knows Mac stopped keeping tally of this shit a long time ago. Mac’s decided Dennis won years ago, and that he’s won too, by “having” Dennis. It was just sad little Dennis, having a sad little competition by himself that nobody else gave a shit about. Mac can have Charlie, because nobody else cares, not even Mac and Charlie, he can have everything that makes Dennis Dennis, screw this shit, the whole stupid rodeo.

“Why would Charlie kill you?”

Realization dawns slowly in Mac’s hazel eyes “Was he avenging me?! Dude!! I bet he was avenging me!! That is so bad _ass_!!”. 

“Yeah, I called him to help me hide your body” Dennis says, and he has no idea why he says it. Guess he’s just that tired. 

“Wait”. 

And a beat

“You were trying to hide my body? How long had it been?” 

“A couple of hours”.

Mac feels a deep sadness overtake him, as he sinks down lower into the floor. Like he’s in a sinking boat, but the boat has already sunk. The idea of Dennis executively disposing of his body, like trash, is so much uglier than the idea of him killing him. Mac wants to explore none of the reasons why, they live in the dark corners his sexuality used to inhabit. he’s got lots of corners like that in his mind, where everything that escapes his personal belief system can cavort unexamined. Dennis killing him in a romanticized fit of passion was very different from Dennis plotting to throw him in the trash. Mac’s been thrown in the trash his whole life, but he’s never been important enough for someone to kill. For Dennis to kill. 

It was one of those moments, those few and far in between moments, when he got a peek of the huge gaping hole inside of Dennis’ chest, felt it mirrored in his own chest, icy and stealing his breath through his ribs. Dennis had never been a good person, and by the time Mac met him, half of Dennis’ life had gone by in terms of emotional trauma but that hole, that empty stare that went right through you, had barely been there. Hanging around outside the drugstore trying to get someone to buy them beers, the weekend after finishing the tenth grade. Dennis all gangly and awkward, laughing at something Mac said. The neon sign lit up his face, Dennis was always surrounded by a halo in Mac’s memories, and Dennis was happy. Just happy. They’d finally gotten some jabroni to buy them a six pack and then run off with the beers and the money, and Dennis was running like a beautiful gazelle person, looking back at Mac and laughing as he tossed him a beer. Mac wondered if he could have done something, something different? More of something? Something more better? to make Dennis’ whole life like that night. Too late. Now, he imagined Dennis’ feelings as very small and dried up, having to live in the iron plated bunker Dennis shoved them in. But he needs to replace them, nobody can live like a robot, so Dennis finds something else to fill the void. Dennis exchanged his feelings for desires, so being happy was sex, money, alcohol, crack. Mac imagined these little crumbling grey men which were happiness, tenderness, kindness, but also sorrow and despair, getting dug in deeper as their bunker sank through the soil. Maybe one of them would hear Mac, just an echo, but what could he have done from down there? Luckily, Mac could supply sex, domesticity and protection. Company. He could cook without carbs, sugar or sodium. He could worship Dennis like a god. If that was what he needed, that’s all he aimed for. 

So why was he surprised he got thrown away the second he became useless?

Yet, there’s still a tiny sliver of hope in his voice as he asks “Did you cry, at all? were you sad?”

“Of course I was sad!” Dennis is surprised to realize that it isn’t a lie. If he thought about his feelings at all he would think of them not as tiny clay dolls or some stupid shit, because feelings were exposed nerves. Exposed nerves he had to insulate. Never look at, let alone touch. Never let them zing with pain in the outside air. He _was_ sad, he just didn’t know it until somebody told him. He just didn’t recognize it. It’s been so long. “But it doesn’t really matter now, does it? Because we’re here together now, right?” 

“It doesn’t really _MATTER_?!” 

Mac jumps to his feet, going from one emotion to the other in one second flat. 

“HOW CAN YOU SAY IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER? How do you think my parents are gonna feel when they find out how I died huh? I... I had a long life ahead of me man! I was getting swole as fuck! I was gonna take up musical theater! I was gonna learn to breakdance! I had this great idea for a workout supplement I was gonna develop AND YOU KILLED ME!” 

Mac was revving up for another fight “DO YOU THINK THAT’S HOW I WANTED TO DIE?!” Dennis takes this question literally. He shouldn’t have.

“Well, yeah”

“What?!”

There’s a dangerous edge to Mac’s voice.

“Well, you always said you wanted to die with your dick inside me”, Dennis shrugs. 

“I SAID THAT WHEN WE WERE BANGING DUDE! EVERYONE SAYS MESSED UP SHIT WHEN THEY’RE BANGING!! NOBODY MEANS IT!”

“I do” 

Dennis says quietly. Mac’s leaning over him, and Dennis maintains eye contact the whole time. But it’s not defiance in his eyes. It’s not manipulation. Dennis is just slowly peeling back the layers, letting the exposed nerves acclimate. It feels like a transformation.

“What?”

“I mean it, I mean the shit I say, when we fuck”. 

Dennis’ voice is a calm monotone, and Mac’s pacing the room now, nervous energy coursing through his whole body. “Oh then you mean it when you say I’m your little bitch huh? You mean it when you say I’m just a stupid boy toy, that you own me, that you’re god... you really mean that huh?”

“Yeah...”

And Dennis at least has the decency to look remorseful. “But, in a good way”. 

“IN A GOOD WAY?? HOW IS THERE A GOOD WAY?!” 

Dennis is getting sick, all this talk without lying is making him queasy, and he decides to chance another broken nose and get the fuck out (his nose seems fine now, and he sees that Mac’s black eye has already faded. Dennis’ hands, on the other hand, are still engraved on his neck, as clear as ever). So he gets up and walks to the front door. He needs to get some air, go somewhere, anywhere, but as he tries to open, he hears Mac’s hysterical laughter behind him. “I spent like an hour trying to kick that thing open dude, it won’t work!”. 

Dennis could swear that Mac sounds glad.

* * *

There’s a crate of tequila in Mac’s closet. It wasn’t there before, when they were alive, and it’s horrible tequila, with cartoon mouse on the label that’s basically a more racist, badly drawn copy of Speedy Gonzales. 

Dennis hates tequila. He’s hated it since ‘05, but better drunk than sober, so they sit at the kitchen table and they quietly down the first bottle. There’s no lemons and no salt this time, but when Mac looks at Dennis, his face becomes fifteen years younger for a second, and he’s struck in awe by his beautiful lips as he drinks, the vulnerability in his deep blue eyes, the long and graceful fingers holding the glass. And that’s when he remembers why they’re here. Mac’s about to go on another “You killed me” tirade, but Dennis beats him to the recrimination game.

“Remember when you got me drunk on tequila and I got date raped?” He asks, very casually. 

“What?!” Mac looks up with the annoyed and confused look he gets when his cognitive abilities are interfering with his everyday life. 

“That time Mac! You know the time, when we were doing the gay bar thing”. “When did you get raped?” “I don’t know man it’s all a blur, I just know I woke up in a house with three dudes and a sore ass” “yeah, I know, Terrell told us, we all got a big laugh out of that” “out of me getting raped?!” “Oh come on Dennis” 

Mac’s face isn’t confused anymore, just annoyed. “you didn’t get raped, you were just a slut”. 

Dennis gets up and starts pacing. He doesn’t know why, but it’s very important that Mac understand. 

“Look, I know that we say men can’t get raped and we talk a lot of shit, but I really did get raped that time Mac. I got raped and I got nothing, no sympathy, from my two best friends and my goddamn sister” 

Mac looks up at him. Dennis wants him to take this seriously, and he is. He had honestly never considered the possibility of Dennis getting raped that time. He had no idea. There’s no laughter in Mac’s voice or his eyes when he says 

“so did you get raped by the librarian too?”. Dennis stops pacing.

He’s dead. What does he care what anyone else thinks of him. It’s actually sort of liberating, for someone who spent his whole life caring so much. 

“You know what? Yes. Yes she did rape me. The first time, I had no idea what she was doing and I didn’t want it. And afterward, I went home and cried about it in my room, hugging my fucking stuffed elephant. Are you happy now? Is that sufficiently entertaining for you?”. 

Mac’s not happy. He wants to get up and put his arms around Dennis. He wants him to feel safe, wants him to know that he would never let that happen again. But then, Mac remembers again why they’re here (why do I keep forgetting?), drinking awful tequila, trapped inside a copy of their apartment, and he doesn’t. 

Dennis’ worked himself up into a rage though, as he dramatically resumes his pacing, looking sideways at Mac at intervals. 

“And you know what? I got raped every time Frank pimped me out, every single time I had to dance for some old, disgusting woman, and have them put shit up my ass, so, so much assplay dude, like who would have thought... and you know what else? I raped plenty of women too. YEAH! Loads of women!! I probably ruined their lives!! I probably made some of them kill themselves!!! How about that huh?! I never gave a shit if they wanted it!! I didn’t even care when they cried, it just turned me on!! how about that Mac?! Oh! And Maureen?! I was planning to kill that bitch right before she died, I wouldn’t have given a shit, just like I don’t give a shit about the bastard fucking kid I fathered”. 

Shit. 

That stings. 

Mac had really wanted to raise Brian Jr with Dennis. He still wanted to. 

He’d started to think he’d make a good father, and lately he fantasized about one of the women he’d banged showing up with a little Mac. He should have realized it was an impossible dream. “We’re not in a relationship Mac”, Dennis had said. He feels his heart break all over again. How many times can Dennis break his heart? Why does Mac keep mending it just to offer it up again? People like Dennis shouldn’t be trusted with something so fragile. Dennis _had_ always reminded him a bit of his dad. Those cold blue eyes. They were the type who were never going to play catch with their kids. Just leave them strewn around like garbage. 

Dennis is flailing his arms around, oblivious to Mac’s trampled dreams. It’s the first time he’s ever said any of these things out loud, it’s the first time he’s ever fully acknowledged them, even to himself, and it feels surprisingly good, like a huge weight has been lifted. So he goes on, unable to stop now that the floodgates are open. 

“And you wanna know something else? Maybe killing you _wasn’t_ an accident, you think about that?! Maybe I was subconsciously denying myself happiness, because I’m just that damaged. Yeah! maybe I killed you just to hurt myself, how pathetic is that?! I mean, what do I know?! I act like I know but I don’t know shit!!” 

Mac considers it, and it makes perfect sense. It was his best case scenario too. The worst is the possibility of his own death not being an accident, of it being a means to an end, or worse, a way to get rid of him, Knowing that at least, on a conscious level, it _was_ an accident, is better than the alternative. The alternative that Dennis even thought he could live without him. The alternative that Mac isn’t wanted. So his voice is calm and collected when he interrupts him.

“So, if your life was just one big rape and murder fest, why did we end up in the same place? I never raped or murdered anyone”. 

“Oh yeah Mac, because you were such a good person”. It takes Mac a moment to register the sarcasm in Dennis’ voice.

“Well, I _was_ a good person, so”. Mac says matter of factly and the laugh that escapes Dennis’ lips is genuine. 

“YOU?! YOU were a good person?! You got me raped!” 

“Oh come on! I didn’t know that was gonna happen! We had actors lined up, they were only gonna make you _think_ you had butt sex, not _have_ butt sex”. 

But Dennis’ got a long list. “Ok well, how about you sleeping with my prom date? And then you slept with my mom!! And then you tried to fuck my aunt!! What the hell was that all about?!” 

“I... I guess I was just trying to get close to you, you know? By proxy”. Mac looks bashful as he says this, and Dennis almost feels a pang of sympathy, but it’s all flooding back to him now. 

“OH! Oh! you fed me the dog because you were trying to get close to me huh?!” 

“THAT WAS THE SUBURBS DENNIS! IT DOESN’T COUNT! WE WERE BOTH GOING CRAZY IN THE SUBURBS, YOU ALMOST KILLED A GUY!!” 

Mac’s been so subdued lately, ever since he came out, that his old aggressiveness and hotheadedness are starting to make Dennis nostalgic. What the fuck is that all about? Did he really miss all this yelling and shouting? The way Mac used to get in his face? Pressing him against the wall? So he could feel the moist warmth emanating from his body, muscles taut. Of course he missed it, he missed it like hell, it’s why he scratches Mac, that yearned violent reaction. But it’s not about that now, right now he needs to make him understand, needs to burst his bubble, so he looks him straight in the eyes and says 

“I know you were poisoning me Mac, right up to the very end”.

Mac, who had gotten up and ready to get in Dennis’ face, is left speechless, frozen in place. “Den. That wasn’t poison man. Who told you that? Was it Dee? That lying bitch”. 

But Mac has that look in his eyes. That look he gets when he’s been found out. Dennis’ seen it so many times that he can spot it in a second. Actually, he can spot all of Mac’s moods in a second, even before he himself can. 

“Why’d you do it Mac? Huh? I thought things were getting better between us, so why’d you wanna hurt me so much you were blending up pizza?”. And there isn’t a hint of malice in his voice.

Mac stands defeated. If he learnt only one thing when he came out, it was that you shouldn’t insist on a lie after it’s been found out. It’s just ridiculous and it wastes everyone’s time. Specially your own. So he answers, with a very small voice. 

“I was afraid you’d leave again”.

Dennis is taken completely by surprise. Like the surprise he felt when he opened the crate and found a rocket launcher, like a cold blast of air to the face. 

“Where _the fuck_ would I go Mac?” And Dennis’ voice sounds less exasperated than he intended. “Where the ever loving fuck would I go? You think that I’ve got like, an army of people willing to put up with me? It’s just you Mac! It’s just you.”

If anyone can turn this declaration of loneliness and isolation into something romantic, that someone is Mac. In two swift paces he’s kissing Dennis, smashing his mouth against his like it’s the most important thing in the world, and Dennis finds himself responding. All of this talk, all this unprecedented self-examination, has left him feeling defenseless and raw, and all he can do is return the kiss, that isn’t so much a kiss as an attack, as his hands roam frantically across Mac’s body. 

They undo each other’s pants, with an urgency neither of them has felt for a long time, and just as urgently Mac’s bending him over the kitchen table, and as their bodies separate any hint of romance is turned into ashes, and something else overtakes them. Something uglier, and far more familiar. 

Mac’s words are spilling gruffly out of his mouth as he tries to open Dennis up with just his spit “you were always such a whore, Dennis, you’re the reason I turned out like this. I could have had a normal life you fucking piece of shit, if you weren’t such a fucking woman”

“Yeah you always wanted this sweet pussy didn’t you? You were always so desperate for it, and I always knew it. _Oh Dennis you look great, Dennis can I massage your pecs?”_ He spits out in a high, whiny moan, all malice. _“_ So fucking pathetic, always looking for my approval, always following me around. We used to laugh at you at school, white trash _and a faggot_ on top of that? So fucking sad” Dennis grits his teeth and taunts him through the pain, as Mac enters him with one swift stab. 

What happens next is quick and dirty. For once, Mac doesn’t give a shit about what Dennis wants, he’s just fucking him into the kitchen table, all his anger and resentment spilling out and into Dennis. “You fucking whore FUCK YOU. You ruined my fucking life!! I would have fucked you thirty years ago if I knew you were so fucking loose. Such a disgusting fucking pig. It’s the only thing you’re good for huh? Taking dick. I should have torn your ass apart and left you for dead when I met you”. Dennis is glad. As his thighs painfully hit the edge of the table with each thrust, he’s glad. And his ass feels like it’s tearing, his internal organs are being bruised and scrambled by Mac’s violence and rage, but he’s glad. This is what he always wanted. To give up control, for Mac to take the reigns of his life and make it better. Or worse. Or something that wasn’t this. For Mac to take his choices from him, grab him and use him, make him useful without Dennis ever having to ask. Too late, too late. 

“You’re a piece of shit, you’re a goddamn piece of shit” Mac’s repeating as he slams into Dennis, and Dennis can’t help but think that Mac is exactly right.

“Yeah but you love it don’t you. I treat you just like you wanna be treated. Like a motherfucking dog” 

And that’s when Mac cums, separating himself from Dennis the moment he does, while Dennis frantically jerks himself off, still bent over the table with Mac’s cum sipping out of his exposed and open ass. “You’re a fucking disgrace” Mac snarls, and Dennis loses it, coming on his own hand with a strangled sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Dennis is romanticized a lot, and I'm guilty of that, because I project way too much into him. Meanwhile he's an almost canonical rapist. I don't want to gloss over the gross shit Dennis has done, and I want to recognize him as a victim himself too.


	5. Go Fuck Yourselves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But Mac did talk about Dennis. In the beginning it was about how cool Dennis was, Dennis said this, and Dennis said that. Then, it was about what an asshole Dennis was, and Dennis did this, Dennis did that. Until Charlie realized that the only unifying thread to Mac’s conversational topics was Dennis. Dennis Dennis Dennis. Dennis was the waitress. 
> 
> “Maybe you’re in love with him man” 
> 
> Charlie had said without a hint of malice, as they huffed spray paint behind the church.

In the begging, it was just him and Mac. 

He wouldn’t call it the good times. They were not good times. They were times of hiding beneath his bed, of sleeping with one eye open. Bonnie made such a big fucking show of motherhood, Charlie wear a jacket, Charlie don’t wander off too far, don’t get out of my sight, not for a second, watch out for that dog, watch out for that man, and yet, yet she couldn’t take care of me? Or maybe she could? Maybe she was doing everything right, and this was just the way shit went. This was just life, and Charlie was too stupid to understand it. It must be that. Charlie don’t wander off too far. What could happen, too far, that was worse than what happened with her sleeping on the other side of the wall? No not the good times. 

Those were not the good times at all.

Charlie learnt not to trust the people in charge. They want him to learn how to read? Charlie’s not gonna read, he’s not gonna do anything they want him to. He’s getting smart, smart enough to know that their rules and wisdom don’t amount to shit. I’m making my own reality, I’m molding it from thin air, because I can create it. Because I’m not stupid. 

Charlie remembers when he made that decision, and each time he does he distorts the memory a little more, so that it started in a hospital and now it’s at a train station, he was with his mother and then he was on a school trip. He decided it by looking at Bonnie and thinking “I will never ever be like you. I will never live in your cruel, absurd world”, and then he decided it just because. And the only underlying current was: I am free of this world. I can make my own reality.

Go fuck yourselves.

Maybe in other circumstances he would have never been friends with Mac. Mac who thought grownups were infalible and kind and right. Mac who not only respected his parent’s authority, but also the teacher’s, the priest’s, anyone who would tell him what to do. He smiled so happily for the school pictures, looking so wholesome, and Charlie couldn’t understand what part of his life made his eyes make those big rainbow shapes while he smiled with so many teeth for the camera, like he was really super hyped to be there, and he really was. Charlie couldn’t understand where he got the fuel for that oficial school picture smile, and first grade, Charlie tried to bite the photographer just two kids down the line.

Yes, under different circumstances they would have never been friends. But Mac the only kid with a half eaten bag of chips for lunch, if he did get a lunch at all and not just yesterday’s empty brown paper bag. Charlie mostly had peanut butter and jelly, but one or two times a week he’d have the prettiest lunch Bonnie could pack, Tupperware upon Tupperware of motherly love. And he hated it, so he gave them to Ronnie. Ronnie was also the only kid with lice that no one would comb out - which is fine because that way you always have lots of someones to talk to, but it’s a misunderstood lifestyle - and Charlie got to pick them at recess and keep them in a jar, after realizing chimpanzees must have very different tastes from ours. Ronnie would come and sit quietly on the curb as Charlie drew some roadkill, never telling Charlie he was gross and weird, and then Charlie would take self-defense classes from him, believing for a long time that Mac really did know karate. These memories are mashed up in Charlie’s head now, into a big Mac collage with a heart in the middle, and a series of songs that make up half of a rock opera. 

Now that Mac is dead, all the memories died with him. Charlie supposed that was alright. He had his collage and his songs, he didn’t really need the details.

And so they grew up together, Charlie sneaking out to go throw rocks at trains with Mac, wander the streets, talk to hobos. Mac didn’t need to sneak out, because nobody gave a shit. Mac’s parents were probably hoping one of those trains hit him so they could be rid of him, but when Charlie told him as much, he got the first black eye he would get from Mac. It would also be the last, because as much as Mac exasperated him, Charlie was kind, and he didn’t want to make his best friend feel like that ever again. Even if he was living in a fantasy world, maybe it was just what he needed to get by. Charlie knew all about doing what you had to do to just get by. About making a fantasy world for yourself, only Charlie’s was made in his image, and society’s expectations shaped Mac’s. Charlie does his thing, Mac’s thing is pretending he’s loved. So,  _ I’ll let Mac have that _ . 

The only problem with this fantasy world? it’s making Mac’s natural, justified anger about his lot in life have no object. Because his parents love him and God is good, so who’s he gonna be angry at? His anger is kept all around him, like static energy, and he can lash out at anyone who penetrates that halo. Charlie’s manic energy goes good with that, they feed off of each other driving everybody else away. Two volatile, manic kids, ready to blow. They’ve perfected the tiny ecosystem of their friendship. They become brothers. They form such a tight knit unit that nobody else can get in, and nobody else wants to. Ronald McDonald and Dirtgrub. The kids with the behavioral problems, the kids with the learning disabilities. The poor kids. Who’d want to hang out with that pair of misfits? No one. 

Until someone did. 

Drug dealers aren’t usually unpopular in high school, they’ve got the drugs after all. Not Mac. Ratting out the other dealers had cemented his status as an undesirable, as a dirty little insect with no moral code, spawned from the criminal underclass fully formed out of hair gel, resentment and spite. People only came near to buy drugs, and Mac had a great variety, his father made sure to stuff his backpack every night for Mac to find in the morning, “hike up the prices on the uppers, and get rid of that weed quickly, it’s just leaves and stems”, little notes where other kids found “Have a great day at school, I love you”. 

Mac would pretend not to care that nobody spoke to them, he was too tough to hang out with the other kids, too badass. Charlie really didn’t care. He didn’t want anyone to accept him, he just wanted freedom to dig around the school yard and play with worms, give them names and write them songs. To paint his pictures, to sniff his glue. Charlie needed no approval from anyone, and Mac, who couldn’t understand it and berated Charlie for it, secretly admired that about him, and drew strength from knowing at least somebody out there could exist like that. Being the weirdo he was, and fuck what anyone else thought. Free.

So, being used to their status as rejects that had been cemented so long ago, Charlie didn’t have a clue to why this rich kid, with expensive clothes and cheekbones sharp as a knife, stuck around after getting what he came for. Why he asked Mac to roll him a joint with the weed he’d just been swindled into buying. And furthermore, why he smoked it with them and pretended to admire Mac’s muscles, Charlie’s singing. Laughed at their jokes, blinding them with his white, rich kid teeth. 

Maybe he’d seen something in Charlie? The same thing Charlie saw later. One tall and handsome, rich and smart. The other small and scruffy, poor and ignorant, and yet, they were more alike than anyone Charlie had ever met. More alike than him and Mac. What was it? There was a wound there, the same wound. The wound that made them go through life like an exposed wire, short circuiting, sparks flying from the slightest movement, prone to electrocute themselves and anyone close, succumbing deeper and deeper into their particular insanities.

And, with that wound, the will to outrun it. And maybe Dennis thought he could outrun it with praise and pussy, while Charlie thought he could outrun it with music and glue, but it was the same race, the same wound.

Neither of them made it too far huh. 

It wasn’t all bad, there was a strange comfort in the ancient wounds, and when they were alone together, despite them themselves having nothing in common, their wounds spoke to each other. Unexamined and infected, they recognized one another and made them laugh, dancing in the back office drugged out of their minds, rejecting the outside world with its medals and its gold. The nihilistic pull to just say fuck it all. 

Dee and Mac were driven, they had goals, unchanging, no matter how many times life told them to quit. They believed in something. Him and Dennis, they’d seen through the veil. They were just chasing shit for something to do, knowing that life meant nothing and that nothing was true. Dennis just turned it into hedonism, but Charlie, Charlie tried to turn it into art. Into love. 

And they had latched onto Dennis, or rather, Dennis and Charlie latched onto Mac. Because Mac was a huge fucking band-aid. Mac blazed through all his hardships. He actually believed every lie he made up. Maybe he wasn’t as shrewd as Dennis, or as creative as Charlie, but he had something better, more useful. He was a rock. And he was a rock because he believed himself to be one. He was tough, he was smart, he was straight, because he decided he was, and that was that. He was a solid presence in both their lives, anchoring them, telling them they too could be tough and strong, if they just believed it enough. 

Trouble is, Charlie thought sadly, we were never dumb enough to believe it were we? He wasn’t mean about it. Being dumb made Mac strong, made him the only one capable of breaking out of their little fucked up group dynamic and having a better life. 

He never did though, because he had to take care of them. 

Take care of the exposed nerves that were Charlie and Dennis. 

Sure, later Charlie would replace Mac with Frank, but only because Mac had been slowly replacing him with Dennis over the years. 

Charlie loved the waitress since High School. He tried to talk to Mac about her, how she made him feel just by looking at her, just knowing she existed, but Mac scoffed, Mac never talked about any girl like that. “Charlie I hate women”. They were well beyond the age you were supposed to hate women. 

But he did talk about Dennis. In the beginning it was about how cool Dennis was, Dennis said this, and Dennis said that. Then, it was about what an asshole Dennis was, and Dennis did this, Dennis did that. Until Charlie realized that the only unifying thread to Mac’s conversational topics was Dennis. Dennis Dennis Dennis. Dennis was the waitress. 

“Maybe you’re in love with him man” Charlie had said without a hint of malice, as they huffed spray paint behind the church. 

Mac hadn’t hit him, he hadn’t said a word. He’d just looked at Charlie with a look that told him maybe he wasn’t so dumb after all. Maybe he knew he was in love with Dennis, and he knew he’d never love a woman that way in his life. A look that told Charlie: stay away, don’t pick at it, don’t pull back the curtain, because this is the only way I can stay alive. He didn’t say a single word, but that look was enough, so Charlie stayed away. He went along with tough, straight Mac, and Mac was able to go on living. 

Slowly Mac had come full circle. Admiring Dennis, to hating Dennis, to worshiping Dennis. Always Dennis, Mac was like one of those penguins that mate for life but with no one to mate with, because Dennis sure as fuck didn’t care about Mac the way Mac cared about him. That’s what had made Charlie so angry. So angry he did what he did. The fact that Dennis had never cared to learn about Mac’s “most badass ways to die”. Worse, he probably knew them, he probably had them filed away in one of his creepy binders, but he just didn’t care. He just killed him, like Mac hadn’t taken care of him for almost thirty years. Taken care of them, never expecting a thing in return. 

Mac had been searching his whole life for the prettiest penguin pebble to give to Dennis, and Dennis had taken one look at it and chucked it away.

* * *

Frank’s gone. Mac’s gone. Dennis is bleeding out three feet away. He’s gone too. There’s only Charlie left. Charlie and Dee. 

Charlie really, really, really doesn’t want to call Dee. Dee broke a trust Charlie didn’t even know was there until it broke. Dee did something unforgivable. Dee widled herself into his life, pretending she was just as broken as him, and maybe she was, but there’s an ugly undercurrent to the weirdness and the pain, one which scares Charlie, and keeps him away. The memory of it keeps him away. 

Life hadn’t been kind to her, and Dee, she’d spent it trying to get back at it, like an endless chicken and egg situation.

So no, Charlie wouldn’t forgive Dee. Specially because, in the beginning , he had thought they were the same. Her with her back brace that made her look like a monster. Him with his, well, his everything. 

Mac and Dennis may have been just as unpopular as them, but they sure didn’t act like it. They were all testosterone and bravado. They looked like what men were supposed to look like, at least from Charlie’s perspective, tall and fit, faces with all the right angles, blinding smiles full of teeth. Dennis was a narcissistic, self deluded mess, and Mac drove everyone away with his awful personality, but they sure looked the part didn’t they, they could conceivably fit in, if they’d just kept their mouths shut. 

Not Dee, not the Aluminum Monster. She was as fucked as Charlie. 

The difference was, she did care. She had no intention of belonging to the fringe class, and it made something dark and ugly grow and fester in the recesses of her soul. 

And yet. Everyone else was dead. So Charlie called Dee. 

* * *

After all the yelling and shit flinging, Dee sits with Charlie, at the kitchen table, far away from the bodies of their family and friends. She’s convinced Charlie not to go off into the crevice and sniff some glue, and she’s made him a cup of tea, and so they sit, subdued and solemn.

She was avoiding Dennis, rolling around in bed, scrolling through people she didn’t like instagrams and online shopping basically at random, putting every other purse in her shopping cart weather she liked it or not, while trying to find an Uber driver who would bring her crack, because  _ goddamn _ . There were many reasons Dennis could be calling after all the drugs they’d just done, and none of them thrill her at the prospect. Charlie, on the other hand, never called, so her curiosity got the best of her, and she picked up on the third ring. Later, it would dawn on her that Dennis’ 132 missed calls must have been to beg her to come over, and that Charlie was just a last-minute replacement.

Would she have helped him hide the body? 

She didn’t give a shit about Mac. Mac was a misogynistic douchebag and she’d always hated him, ever since he came along and took Dennis away from her. They hadn’t been close for a long time, even though they were twins and supposed to have a special bond. Barbara had made sure of that hadn’t she. She’d made sure to pit them against each other as soon as she could, so they couldn’t unite against her. And what was the best way to do that? By making one into a prince and the other one into just unwanted garbage. So no, they hadn’t been close for a long time, but at least they were lonely together. 

And then Mac came along, little Ronald fucking McDonald, with his greasy hair, and his ratty t-shirts, and his goddamn puppy dog eyes, and he’d taken Dennis completely away. Because now Dennis had a shadow. He had a partner, an accomplice, a soulmate. And what did she have? her resentment and her spite. She’d watch them, walking the school halls, close together like there wasn’t enough space, laughing and yelling and pushing nerds into lockers, and they wouldn’t even look her way as they passed.

Dee wasn’t like Dennis, all bark and no bite. When she said she hated somebody, she meant it. She didn’t care if Mac lived or died. So, he died. Tough titties.

On the other hand, she had come to hate Dennis more than she hated Mac, because she hated him with the passion of hating whom you once loved. Such a precious little shit. As soon as Barbara died, Mac had been ready to take her place as the leader and only member of the cult of Dennis, doting on him and taking care of him and making him think he was the most important boy in the whole wide world. 

How come there always has to be one human being tasked with coddling Dennis at all times? and if it wasn't for what Charlie did, would it have been her turn next? Ha! Dennis would have had to end up killing himself, from starvation, alcohol poisoning or overdose, and Dee wouldn’t have lifted a finger. It was the principle of it. 

But does that mean she wouldn’t have helped him get rid of the body? Well, that depends, how much would he have been willing to pay? Dee knew it wouldn’t have had to be much, since having that kind of leverage against him was priceless. Dennis would have had to live the rest of his life as her slave. Her literal slave.

Anyways, it had been terrible luck for her twin that Charlie picked up and she didn’t, and as she sips her coffee, she’s amazed to realize that she doesn’t give one single, solitary fuck. She’s been training to be tough all her life, ever since Barbara’s first disgusted look her way. The training’s paid off.

_ But _ she does give a fuck about Charlie, for some unfathomable reason, looking so sad and confused and small, with his hands around his cup of tea as if he were cold. Maybe it’s true you can’t go through life absolutely despising everyone you know. She had to latch on to someone. Mac was out of the question, Frank obviously too, and she wouldn’t give Dennis the satisfaction, so she had chosen Charlie, it seemed. Sweet, small, unthreatening Charlie. A man in her life who never did her any lasting harm. What the fuck was that about. He was the least bad member of her little gang of degenerates, and he was the only one left alive.

Now she turns towards him and gives him her verdict. “You’ve got to turn yourself in”. 

Charlie reacts like a feral animal trapped into a corner, and for the millionth time, Dee wonders what exactly happened to him, to make him like this. 

“WHAT THE FUCK DEE?! I THOUGHT YOU WERE GONNA HELP ME!!” Charlie’s voice rises in tone and volume, and Dee’s glad the first thing she did was take away his gun.

“Charlie. Charlie listen to me. Where are you gonna go? You’ll be a fugitive, and you don’t even like leaving Philly!” 

“I can hide out with you in your apartment. Or at the bar!! You cover for me, bring me food and stuff, yeah! that’s much better, I’ll hide out at Paddy’s forever”

“Oh come on Charlie, those are gonna be the first places they look”. 

And it’s true, it’s not just that she can’t imagine living with a fugitive Charlie for the rest of her life. She may care about him, but she cares about him the only way she knows how, hands off, from a safe distance. It’s ten years ago but without Peter Nincompoop. There was a very good reason she wouldn’t run away with him that time, and it wasn’t just the ludicrously stupid plan Charlie had thought up. Dee would never get that close to anybody, Dee was going to die comfortably in her bed, from old age, surrounded by objects and not by people. Look at what happens when you allow someone to get close, look at what happened to Dennis. Dee needs to subtract herself from this, and it isn’t even a bad plan, Dee’s crafty. 

“Look, look, listen to me, CHARLIE!” She shouts, because Charlie’s holding his head in his hands and pulling at his hair like he wants to tear it out. 

Despite the gravity of the situation, it takes all of her effort not to break into an evil villain accent. “Listen Charlie it’s gonna be ok. If you turn yourself in they take that into account you know? it’ll shorten your sentence” 

and at the word “sentence” Charlie winces like he’s going to resume screaming, but Dee quickly continues. 

“And you know what else they’re gonna take into account? That Dennis was a fucking psycho. I’ll testify to that and it won’t even be a lie. It was self-defense! He would have probably killed you after you helped him get rid of Mac”.

Charlie hadn’t killed Dennis out of self-defense. He’d killed him out of pure, unadulterated rage, and as the rage subsided, he was left only with confusion and regret.

“I don’t know Dee, maybe it was true, maybe it was just an accident” 

“oh come on Charlie! How do you tie somebody up and choke them to death by accident?”

“I don’t know man!! I don’t know what kind of kinky shit they were into!” 

True. True, Dee thinks. Dennis had always been into some gross shit, Dee hated to think about her brother like that but she  _ had  _ been trapped in his fucking torture chamber after all. She’d always suspected Mac was into gross shit too, and judging by the existence of the ass-pounder 4000, he was. Judging by him fucking Dennis, above all by him fucking Dennis.

Neither of them were at all surprised that Mac and Dennis were banging, despite them never having said a word about it. It would have surprised them if they weren’t. It would have surprised them if Mac wasn’t grateful for it every time, even after all these years, and it would have surprised them if Dennis didn’t, ironically, use Mac like a sexdoll, and put him away when he was done, for Mac to resume his role as friend until Dennis needed it again, and then Mac would pound him into the bed and thank God, Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

They just never commented on it, not out of respect for their privacy, but just because they were both so fucking tired of being caught in the middle of this repressed thirty year long romance by a pair of self-involved assholes.

“Be that as it may Charlie, he killed your best friend, it’s only logical you would feel threatened”. 

“But I didn’t feel threatened! I was just angry! He took Mac and he ruined him and then he threw him away! Fuck Dennis!!” 

“Charlie, Charlie” Dee put her hand on his arm comfortingly, she needed to calm him down. “I know that ok? Fuck Dennis. But listen: we’re gonna say he was gonna kill you too, he was coming after you, he was out of control. You know he had a mental disorder, he had like a serious mental disorder Charlie! Everybody knows that! He probably killed Maureen Ponderosa too”. 

What Charlie wants to say is, yeah. I know he had a mental disorder. I’ve got like ten of those. That’s how an Ivy League kid who was raised in a mansion ends up being friends with someone who talks to rats.

That’s why we could be friends, but it comes out different. 

“Ok but why are we gonna say that?” 

Dee can’t believe she has to explain it but at least Charlie’s listening to her now. That’s an improvement. 

“Because, Charlie, killing someone in self-defense isn’t a crime. You had to do it”

Charlie knows a neat trick. When he’s not liking the conversation, he simply lets his brain go offline. It’s too much reality, too much reality and he really needs a shit ton of glue right now. Everyone is dead, and Dee’s telling him how to get out of it as if they were planning to dispose of trash. Burn it up so the smoke can turn into stars. Charlie hates this stupid conversation, so, say yes to everything, agree. Let Dee manage all this. Charlie’s mind slowly retreats into the crevice. His fantasy world welcomes him with open arms. 

“Well I do know about all of this, from my various lawyerings” 

Outside looking in, it seems like a light bulb has lit up in Charlie’s head, when it’s exactly the opposite: Charlie has simply subtracted himself from the equation. 

“And of course, I did kill Dennis in self-defense”.

I’ll say whatever you want me to say, just pass the glue.

“But did I kill him before or after I killed Mac?” 

GODDAMMIT CHARLIE

Dee bangs her head against the table. It’s gonna be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. I'm aware that this was pretty depressing, I'm sorry. Anyways thank you so much for reading, and leave me a comment if you have notes or whatevers! <3
> 
> I try to not be depressing with Charlie but i can’t. He’s got so much potential and so little chances. I write Dee so mean because that’s how I’d feel if I were treated like that. Maybe my Dee is more jaded than canon Dee but I hope not too much.


	6. Hand in Unlovable Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “At least I loved you though”, 
> 
> and he says it to hurt Dennis, but he only hurts himself.
> 
> “Well...”
> 
> Dennis stops. No more lies, if he’s stuck here, he’s stuck here on his own terms, no more manipulating and calculating and scheming. Who’s he got to impress now? Everything he’s said since he died is true. If he’s admitted to the bad, maybe he can admit to the good? To the small and far between positive feelings he lets slip through the cracks? Why do they embarrass him in a way that admitting to multiple rapes can’t? Maybe being a monster is preferable to being a human being. But he is a human being after all. Let the real Dennis come out, he’s dead anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the most MacDennis song in the world, No Children by The Mountain Goats
> 
> Trigger warning for suicide

After the sex is just like after the fight.

Mac and Dennis are still sitting on the kitchen floor, only there’s a tequila bottle being passed around, and no broken noses. 

Mac is the first to speak. “I looked in the cupboards before you got here. Did you know that there’s no food in the apartment?” 

“I don’t think we need to eat Mac. We’re dead.” 

“Oh. Right.” 

More silence, Mac scrunches his face like he’s thinking very hard. Dennis just sits and drinks. Mind empty. The best thing about getting fucked like that, it fucks all the thoughts out of your head. 

But then Mac speaks up again. 

“Do you realize, that every bad thing I’ve done, every bad thing you listed, I did to you? _You_ were the problem, Dennis, I could have had a different life”. 

“Oh so now everything you put me through is my fault huh? Nice victim blaming bro”. Dennis answers automatically. He’s not in the mood for thinking yet, but he can’t just let Mac get away with this shit. 

Mac looks down, he’s fiddling with the bottle label, trying to come up with the right words. 

  
  
  


“At least I loved you though”, 

  
  
  


and he says it to hurt Dennis, but he only hurts himself.

“Well...”

Dennis stops. No more lies, if he’s stuck here, he’s stuck here on his own terms, no more manipulating and calculating and scheming. Who’s he got to impress now? Everything he’s said since he died is true. If he’s admitted to the bad, maybe he can admit to the good? To the small and far between positive feelings he lets slip through the cracks? Why do they embarrass him in a way that admitting to multiple rapes can’t? Maybe being a monster is preferable to being a human being. But he is a human being after all. Let the real Dennis come out, he’s dead anyways. 

“I guess I loved you, as much as I’m capable of love. I guess I loved you and I loved Dee too. It was just never enough. I don’t think I’m able to, love someone the way that you love someone. It’s just the way I am, and I know it’s not enough, but if I had been able, to love someone like that, it would have been you.”

Mac smiles sadly to himself. “Bro. I wish you’d told me that twenty-five years ago”. 

He thinks maybe he could have lived his life. Not wait until he was forty. But he did, he waited and waited, because he didn’t know there would be someone there to catch him if he did. 

“When did you start?” Dennis asks despite himself. “Loving me, I mean”. 

“Den I loved you from the moment I first fucking set eyes on you. Under the bleachers, with Charlie throwing rocks at me. You came up to us, and you said ‘hey, you holding?’ and my whole life went to shit”.

He takes another swig from the bottle. The tequila burns going down, and Mac doesn’t know if he’s wincing because of that or because of all his bittersweet memories coming back. 

Memories of sleepovers when he’d stayed up to watch Dennis sleep, creeping his hand up to touch his face and always stopping short. Waiting for him at his locker and pretending he was just passing by. Getting caught staring, so many times, letting his hand linger when they passed a bottle, a joint, a cigarette. Mac never smoked, but he smoked with Dennis, just to share something that his lips had touched. 

Memories of lying in bed, whole afternoons after school, just thinking of him. Daydreaming about what would happen, if Dennis were a girl. Imagining asking her out on a date, walking hand in hand as he took her home. Telling her he loved her on her doorstep, to lean into the softest, sweetest kiss. Then he’d introduce her to his parents. Prom, marriage, babies. They’d grow old together, die in each other’s arms. He’d loved him so much, and for so long.

Dennis smiles sadly at Mac. “All that time huh”

Mac inches his hand toward his, and Dennis hooks his pinkie finger in his. 

“Maybe we can have a second chance?” Mac raises his eyebrows, his face openly, painfully hopeful. “Maybe God put us here so we could get a second chance?”.

A second chance at love, after death. 

Mac leans in to kiss Dennis, and Dennis feels a flutter in his perforated chest. What if? What if this were their second chance? What if this were their first kiss. They looked deep into each other’s eyes. There’s that sweetness. So sweet it makes your teeth hurt. 

  
  
  


_And I want you here with me. From tonight until the end of time_

  
  
  


“I fought against it so long, you know? I tried to hate you Dennis I really did. And sometimes I really did hate you. Sometimes I hate you so much it makes me physically sick. But I could never leave. You were like the air to me, I could never be apart from you”. 

Mac looks down at their hands, now locked in each other. “This was all I wanted. I didn’t want you to change or pretend to be someone you’re not. I loved you with all your baggage dude. Your mood swings, your self-loathing. I loved all of you, and all I ever wanted was to just sit with you, hand in hand”.

“Huh”

Dennis’ words catch in his throat. “So, you were never... put off? By all of tha... of me? All of me?”

“Dennis how could I ever be put off by anything you did?”

Dennis is taken back to that fateful afternoon, when he went behind the bleachers to buy some pot. He would have let those lingering fingers stay a little longer, he would have smiled when he caught Mac staring. He would have accepted the possibility of somebody loving him, loving Dennis, and not the version of him he had constructed, which, in those days, had to be watched at all time because it was new. No time to see anybody else. No time to see Mac.

So, he’d confess his love to Mac one night, maybe one of those nights Charlie passed out and they’d stay up drinking in some basement until the sun went up. And Mac would try to hit him, because of course he would have. But Mac would be different too. Dennis would work so hard to erode his homophobia and his bigotry and everything his dad ever taught him. It would be Dennis’ greatest project, and Dennis believed in his abilities to manipulate people, he’d make it work. 

It wasn’t manipulation though. It would just be helping Mac to accept who he was. Dennis looks back and he can’t think of a single time he manipulated anyone into doing something good. But he could have. He could have been that person. Mac would give in, because he was young, and malleable, and desperate for love. They would have gone to prom together, a big fuck you to all the popular kids. They’d move in together, just like they did, but this time it would be so different, Mac carrying him over the threshold of their new apartment, throwing him on the bed, both laughing as Mac struggled to catch his breath. 

“Dumbass” Dennis would smile fondly, and Mac would give him a playful punch on the shoulder and go off to make dinner. A dinner Dennis would eat, because in this version of events, everything was alright and Dennis was allowed to eat. 

After dinner they’d sit and watch Predator together, Mac carding his fingers through Dennis’ hair, like he always wanted to but never dared. Dennis would drift asleep and Mac would wake him with soft kisses. “Wake up baby, I’m not carrying you to bed again”, and Dennis would groan and look at Mac with half lidded eyes. “Ok but kiss me first”. Mac would lean down and give him the softest, sweetest kiss. They’ve got their whole lives ahead of them to kiss like this. Dennis feels whole. 

He could have lived that life. Mac could have lived that life. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe all he had to do was let Mac’s optimism envelop him. There has to be a reason they’ve been thrown here together. Make up for lost time, get it right this time. Allow Mac to love him and allow himself to love Mac. It doesn’t sound so bad. It sounds like a beautiful afterlife. They’ve been thrown in here together to make it work. 

Mac is looking intently at Dennis, trying to muster up the courage. Fuck it all, they’re both dead now, so Mac dares to ask: “when did you start loving me?”. 

_For_ _once_ _in_ _your_ _life_ , _say_ _something_ _nice_ _to_ _me._

Dennis takes the bottle from him and takes a big gulp, looking pensive, before answering. “I don’t know, I guess you just kinda grew on me? I don’t think I loved you the first time you said it. Remember? When the McPoyles took us hostage”. 

Of course Mac remembers, it used to be one of his biggest regrets, and he’d lay in bed awake at night, going over the whole damn thing. Dennis’ confused, and then appalled, expression was something he’d take to his grave. And beyond, it seems. He was so stupid, he really thought Dennis would say it back. Instead he went straight to try and bang the McPoyle chick and leave him to die. 

“But” Dennis continues, “I think I did love you when I married Maureen. I think that’s why I married her”.

Mac is violently taken out of the cloud he was floating in, overcome with disbelief, and then, white hot rage. That was ten years ago! They could have made a go at it! At a serious relationship, not this codependent, uneven weird domestic partnership crap with occasional benefits, where nothing was ever said out loud, where he couldn’t claim ownership of Dennis. Where they were just two codependent losers.

“How the fuck does that make sense?! You loved me and so you married Maureen?! That’s so stupid! You could have married me!!” 

Dennis is incredulous. He can’t believe Mac’s pretending like he would have jumped into his arms if he’d proposed a serious relationship ten years ago. 

“Oh. Oh. Like you were gonna marry me. Dude you were dead set against gay marriage, you were furious Carmen was getting married and she was a fucking girl getting married to a fucking dude! How do you think that made me feel huh?! Do you think it felt nice? you were so disgusted by any future we could have had together! So what the fuck did you expect me to do Mac”.

Mac hangs his head. He’s got nothing to say to that. It’s all true. 

So unfair. Dennis could pick and chose, makeup, dresses, hookups, because it all meant nothing to him. He was still a god. Meanwhile Mac had to be a mortal man adhering to mortal rules. Be tough, be strong, be straight.

Would it have been different though? If Mac had made peace with himself sooner? If he’d let Dennis in? 

Dennis knows he’s been unfair to Mac, dumpling it all on him. He knows it’s not all on him. 

Because all the while, something tiny and incredibly dense, like a white dwarf, was burning into Dennis’ insides. Because he could hear Frank in the back of his head the whole time.

  
  
  


“I don’t think the kid’s even capable of feeling love Barbara” Frank fights with his mother, Dennis listens from the top of the stairs in his pajamas, holding Mr Tibbs. 

“You think he’s capable of love? He’s a little psycho! he’s not right in the head ya hear? You fucking smother him and you think you gonna get anything back? from Dennis?! He’d murder you in your sleep and you know it. The little freak.” Then lower, whispered just for him to hear, blending and splicing with the real memories: “You’re sick Dennis, you ain’t right in the head. _Oh_ _you_ _love_ _Mac_ _huh_? You don’t love him you stupid little shit. You just found someone dumb enough to believe your own hype. You just love the Dennis he thinks you are, and he’s fucking STUPID. No smart person would believe any of your bullshit. “Opening up” and shit. You think you’re suddenly a good person cos you owed up to being a psycho? You had your whole life to be better, but you rather whine about how the mean lady hurt you, like suddenly that makes you a saint. Meanwhile, you’re still running that man to the ground just to get your rocks off “.

“You’re not gay. You’re just really REALLY vain”. 

  
  
  
  


“Your dad really fucked you up” Dennis spits out. 

_Our_ _dads_. Our dads really fucked us up. 

Mac looks up at him again, he’s gotten his fight back. 

“No. No dude my dad protected me. Remember the gay kid at school? He had to transfer out after what happened. And you know what? I was there, when he was getting beat up in the parking lot. I even got a few kicks in”. 

“What the fuck Mac”. 

Dennis hadn’t known that. The things he didn’t know about Mac were few and far between. 

“Oh, what were you gonna do if I came out? Were you gonna protect me? All ninety pounds of you? No, you would have been there too, cheering them on as they beat me up. And don’t pretend you wouldn’t have. Don’t you dare”. 

Dennis knows he would have. He would have beat little Ronnie the Rat into a pulp with his bare hands, for just one invite to one of Adriano’s parties. And that’s just the way it was. So, he has no comeback. He just sits and drinks. 

“wait a minute”

Dennis massages the bridge of his nose, _please_ _shut_ _the_ _fuck_ _up_ _Mac_

“I know that speech! that’s the speech the manhorse said to the pink cat!”

Dennis feels like he’s tripping.

“What?”

“The one about not being able to love good, oh I’m not able to love enough, I can’t love like other people like normal, I’m such a sad horse the whole thing, I saw it with you man, on that Netflix show! The talking animals!” 

Dennis’ identity unfolds before Mac. The onion in the hand. 

“The speech where you told me you loved me! It was all just Bojack Horseman!”.

Huh. Dennis just sits and drinks.

“Say something nice, just, for once in your life. Say something nice to me”.

Dennis looks straight at Mac. 

“Your hair looks small”

“You know what Den? I don’t wanna do this anymore”. 

It’s very quiet, and Dennis doesn’t have much time to register it, just to think “no shit”, before he realizes what Mac’s talking about. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing Mac? Put down that knife”. Mac’s balancing the point of their sharpest kitchen knife on his right arm. 

“Dee said to cut along the arm, not across, right?” 

“What the fuck are you doing? You can’t kill yourself genius, you’re already dead!” 

Mac has always relished a chance to gloat about his knowledge of the afterlife, and never mind that nothing here matches with his beefcake heaven. “I know I’m dead, that’s why I’m doing this. Suicide’s a sin but it’s not suicide if you’re already dead. Maybe this way I’ll get sent somewhere else, somewhere else without you. It’s not like I’m gonna get more dead" 

Dennis is completely floored. “Why would you want to get sent somewhere without me?”. 

The words come out before he can stop them, and he regrets them the moment they do. 

  
  
  
  


_Dennis how could I ever be put off by anything you did?_ Ha. Yeah. Dennis always knew better. He’s been putting people off since he was born.

  
  
  
  


One time, just one time, Dennis tried to get away. He knew he couldn’t make Mac leave, so he left, and he left Mac the number for a mental health line instead of his own. 

Nobody knows how hard it was for him, nobody knows why he did it and why he came back. They thought he did it because of some ill conceived sentimentality towards his son, that was the official version. That was Dennis trying to trick Dennis into being someone he wanted to be. He did that a lot. 

But he wasn’t stupid. He knew why he did it. He did it because of that goddamned rocket launcher. 

Because when he opened that goddamned crate on that goddamned valentine’s day, he knew Mac had the infinite capability to make somebody happy. 

Mac was made to remember little details and perform grand gestures, and he’d wasted that talent, probably Mac’s greatest, and only, talent, shoveling love and kindness and trust into the hole that was Dennis’ chest. Making absolutely no headway, for exactly 28 years, because Dennis was a vortex that only knew how to take, consume, destroy. Mac wouldn’t stop giving until there were only the bare bones, and then he’d give him that too. 

So, that was the most selfless thing Dennis had ever done. He realizes and he feels like it was right. 

Not proud. He hates himself too much to feel proud. 

  
  
  


_But it was the right thing to do, and I did it._

  
  
  
  


Why did he come back? Because he couldn’t bear it. But he held out, he held out until he thought he might die.

Was he that in love with Mac? 

Then why hadn’t he come back with some grand gesture of his own, sweeping Mac off his feet like everything he’d ever dreamed of him? So maybe Mac believed he didn’t mean to copy his speech, _that’s just how he built his identity._ Scraps of pop culture and magazines and overheard locker room talk, all stuck together by vanity and spite to make one whole Dennis.

Frank was right. You don’t deserve love. You don’t know how. 

But he didn’t need to deserve it! because Mac thought he did. It didn’t need to be enough, because Mac loved enough for both of them. That’s how he’d sustained himself all these years, but of course he didn’t deserve it. Dennis didn’t deserve nice things. 

Dennis says he’s just an all-consuming hole, a pastiche of lies, but for just one second, for eleven motherfucking months, he’d been fair to Mac, and left him alone to find happiness. 

And so, Mac had had somebody love him like he wanted all his life.

Like he always deserved. Selflessly, passionately, protectively. 

Just, it wasn’t the times Dennis let him dye his hair, or doze off in his bed with him. It wasn’t the movie nights Dennis rested his head in his lap, or the monthly dinners when he ordered salad for him, to keep him healthy. It wasn’t the lingering looks over breakfast, or the late night drives home, buzzed and singing along to the radio, the sharp corners rounded and fuzzy. It wasn’t coming deep into Dennis, feeling like drowning in his deep ocean eyes. 

It was the worst eleven motherfucking months of Dennis’ life. 

The worst months of Mac’s life.

“Mac I...”

Mac I love you and I’m sorry. You’re the only person who’s ever mattered to me, you were my whole life, all this time. I never had a real relationship with a woman because I was in love with you. It was always you. I love your stupid project badass tapes, your stupid cut off graphic t-shirts and your stupid dickies. your enthusiasm, your optimism, your fucking innocence. I love the freckles on your shoulders and the way you squint when you’re trying to figure something out. I know the exact shade of your eyes, the curve of your lips. I’ve stared at you for more time than you could ever imagine. Every time I lashed out at you, every time I flinched when we touched, it was because I hated myself. I didn’t hate you. I never hated you. I loved you. I loved you and I still love you.

The words catch and rot in Dennis’ throat.

Too late now. Too little, too late. The totality of what Dennis is able to do for love, the totality of his goodness, his selflessness, is only eleven months long.

  
  
  


Frank whispers into Dennis’ ear again: “see? I told ya. You don’t deserve it”.

  
  
  
  


“Mac I think this might be the stupidest idea you’ve ever had”

Mac scoffs. and cuts a long, deep gash in his arm from wrist to elbow “There.” He looks up triumphant at Dennis, finishing the other one, “now I just need to wait”. 

Dennis doesn’t deserve love. Too little too late. He’s going to follow Mac monstrously around, like a recurring nightmare. He’s gonna make him regret he ever met him. Dennis can’t love. He’s not allowed. 

And first of all, Mac can’t beat him at this. Mac can’t forget his place in the hierarchy that only Dennis keeps track of. So he wants to get away? Yeah tough luck. 

He goes over to Mac and snatches the knife out of his hands. “This is how you do it you fucking coward”, and before he can think it through he’s cutting a deep wound into his own exposed throat. 

Ha! I beat Mac! I’m so much better than him at everything, Dennis looks down to see his shirt impregnated with blood. I left! I left before Mac could! Nobody leaves the golden god. He wants to give Mac a triumphant glare but he doesn’t make it, because he crumples onto the floor and the last thing he hears is Mac, under his breath: 

“bitch”. 

* * *

Dennis comes to wearing a clean shirt and standing in the middle of the living room again. He feels at his neck. No wound. He feels at his chest. The bullet holes are still there. Then he looks towards the kitchen, and there’s Mac, drinking tequila with his head in his hands. No marks on his arms. 

“So. No escape then”

Mac’s hysterical laugh is back. “I guess it’s just God’s plan isn’t it?”

“You still believe in God? After all this shit?”

“You don’t? Who do you think made all this? Evolution?”

“Well”, Dennis says, “not a good and merciful God anyways.”

He suddenly feels very old and tired. They say you’ll sleep when you’re dead, but after spending a couple of hours trying to doze off, he realizes it’s probably like eating. He’ll just have to get used to this. 

No escape, not even in dreams. 

Mac’s sitting on the couch when he comes out of his bedroom. “Did you know every channel here is just back to back infomercials?” 

“And how the fuck would I know that Mac?” Dennis says, irritated and tired from trying to sleep, but he still sits down next to him and watches a woman vacuum some wine she just spilled on a cream-colored carpet. 

It seems that Mac can’t help talking. It’s going to be a long eternity. “My mom and dad must know I’m dead by now. They must be so sad”. “Your mom and dad don’t give a shit. They hate your guts”, Dennis says automatically, and for once, Mac doesn’t argue.

A man’s trying to strain some pasta now, fucking it up spectacularly, as if straining pasta was the pinnacle of competitive cooking. “So, if Frank’s also dead, why isn’t he here with us then?” Mac asks turning towards Dennis. His face, illuminated by the soft glow of the tv, looks fifteen years old again. Mac never could stand much silence, he never could stand being inside his own head. 

“Do you want him here with us?” “I dunno, could be a distraction”. Dennis looks down, his face in a pained scowl. He knows where this is going, and Mac drones on 

“So, we’re in some sort of limbo now? Like purgatory? How long do you think we’ll stay here? Do you think the rest of the gang’ll get sent here when they die?”

Mac McDonald died at 43 years of age, and his mind is still that of a child, waiting for Santa Claus to come down some poor sap’s chimney so he can go and rob him blind. 

“I don’t think they will Mac, I think it’s just us”. 

Dennis looks at him and Mac looks back. He hasn’t lost hope yet, it’s right there in his eyes, and Dennis thinks that’ll make him so easy to torture. 

But who’s supposed to torture Mac? Dennis looks around and he sees no one. No one else but him. 

Oh. 

At least Dennis took that away from God. He himself can’t be punished, because there’s nothing left to take. Nothing. 

Dennis feels like a vast, unending wasteland. 

“So, you think we’ll get to heaven soon?” 

Mac never could shut up could he. Dennis looks at Mac’s hand, resting next to him on the couch. He feels like he’s seen this hand more than his own, the bitten nails, the freckles, the familiar scars. He thinks he could take it in his, to comfort him, to help him with what’s coming. 

But he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t feel it, so he doesn’t do it. All that Dennis feels is one big, gaping hole.

“This is hell Mac. We’re in hell”

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry for being so somber, this is just where the characters take me. Anyways as always thanks for reading and please comment! I appreciate it so much. 
> 
> One more chapter to go.


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So how’s the reading going?” They see each other every Wednesday, so they just pick right up where they left off. 
> 
> “Not bad. The reading’s not as hard as the writing though, spelling’s all over the place man, it’s insane!”. 
> 
> Dee smiles at the way Charlie’s voice raises in pitch. It’s like that every time he gets excited, it’s always been like that. The continuity is comforting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I realized Charlie's comment on Dee's face may seem like I'm critical of Kaitlin's appearance. I'm not, I think she looks beautiful as ever and that it's her own business and no one else's what she does or doesn't do with her appearance. I just headcanon Dee as someone who would get a ton of plastic surgery if she had the money for it, so that's where that comes from.

Dee’s putting her jewelry on the tray to go through the metal detector. She keeps an eye on it as she gets pat down. Those were very expensive, they’re all gold and silver and platinum. Not plated, solid. They were chosen specifically because they were expensive. 

She looks at the guard like he’s an insect. In a way, he is. He‘s not rich like her.

It’s supposed to be a nice prison, as nice as prisons can get. But it’s just full of dirty, disgusting people who don’t know how to get away with shit. The underclass. Losers. What, exactly, _is_ Deandra Reynolds doing in this dump? She’s got one, only friend, and, for now, she needs her friend. 

What Dee calls her transformation has been streamlined. She calculates that by the time Charlie gets out she won’t need him anymore. She won’t need anybody anymore. Instead, she’ll be finally free from all human connection. What has human connection done for her? What has she gotten out of loving and caring for people? Nothing. By the time Charlie gets out Dee will be an island, an indestructible fortress. She won’t let anybody in. Dee will die alone. That’s her plan. Does she love Charlie? Of course she loves Charlie. That’s why she prefers him in prison, locked up, far away from her. 

To say that Charlie had some mitigating circumstances would be an understatement. On the one hand, his cognitive deficiencies jumped out at anyone, and he’d had an army of psychiatrists listing off his various handicaps. Addiction to various legal and illegal substances, illiteracy, various untreated mental disorders. Bonnie cried so much in the stand that she was escorted out, they had to pause her testimony three times. “Charlie! My Charlie!” 

When the subject of uncle Jack came up Bonnie wouldn’t meet Charlie’s eyes. It was all official and made record now, for anyone to read. Something that had haunted Charlie for his whole life was now clinically spread out on paper in black and white. Surprisingly for him, the night after he recounted what little he could remember to the psychiatrist was the best night’s sleep of his whole life. 

  
  


Charlie had almost been deemed unfit to stand trial by the state of Pennsylvania. Everyone who knew him was surprised he wasn’t. 

  
  


Six shots right through the chest. And did the jury know of the defendant’s long and complicated history with Dennis Reynolds? The waitress hears about the supposed rivalry for a shared love interest they had. She intuits that there was never much of a rivalry, just Charlie suffering because of Dennis, and it makes her a little sad. Charlie’s been the only constant in her life for a long time. When she heard of Dennis’ death she felt no more than what you’d feel about anyone you know dying in a sudden and violent manner. His death was no more impactful to her than Mac’s death, and she wondered if her infatuation with him was over or if perhaps it had never been real. 

Cricket was also in the stands. Charlie thought he looked much better and then realized it was just because of the pure glee illuminating his face. He enjoyed the trial immensely, secretly eating from various mystery foods he brought in hidden in his coat, looking like he was snacking on popcorn. 

Artemis attended a few times, dressed like she was staring in a noir film, and telling Charlie that he was the best one of the lot, and that she didn’t care much about his motives for killing Dennis or whether they were justified. Zee surprised everyone by showing up in a three piece suit, and a few McPoyles, the waiter and the lawyer were always present, some days just one of them, some days all, looking like they were about to explode with barely contained excitement. Pondy didn’t show up. His bloated and rotting corpse would later be discovered in the rundown room he was renting. 

The only person who’s presence unsettled Charlie was Mandy. She looked like Charlie’s teachers had looked sometimes, like when he wouldn’t stop thrashing and biting and Mrs whatsherface made that same disappointed and deeply sad expression. He tried not to look her way. 

Later she would visit him, and he’d learn that all that sadness had been for him. Mandy was sad that Dennis died but in the way you can be sad that summer’s over. To her it seemed like an inevitability, that someone would end up murdering him, ever since observing the way he lived and treated people, that year in North Dakota. Later, she would even take Brian Jr to visit in jail, and Charlie wanted to ask him for forgiveness, but Mandy squinted, and with a venom Charlie hadn’t known was in her, hissed at him to not say a word. Brian Jr was better off without his father. 

The photos from the crime scene were gruesome, but Charlie couldn’t help but smile at how ripped and handsome Mac looked in his pictures (even if he _was_ dead). Mac would have loved them, he looked badass, like he’d died in some ancient battle, one of those historical wars where dudes fought without shirts. Dennis... Dennis didn’t look so hot. He looked more like his sex doll than like the real Dennis. It was unsettling. 

Charlie’s cross examination was somehow frustrating for both the prosecution and the defense, but luckily for the later, Charlie had come to convince himself that he was acting in self-defense, it’s the beauty of heavy drug use. The jury believed it, because he did. He didn’t strike anyone as crafty enough to be able to lie about anything.

But what helped him the most, as Dee said it would, was that Dennis Reynolds was a renown psycho. He had a long list of misdemeanors and bench warrants and crimes, along with a myriad of testimonies to his mental instability and notorious sadism. Worst of all, he had just killed his lover of almost thirty years, in a twisted sexual ritual that surprised literally no one who knew him. It became apparent that Dennis was a deeply unstable and dangerous person, and everyone agreed that he’d come off much worse than small, unthreatening Charlie, with his sad green eyes and his sad brown suit.

On top of all this, Charlie had had the best lawyers that money could buy, and so, he was looking at five years in minimum security. Two, with good behavior.

Mac’s mother didn’t attend even one court session. Dennis had no one to attend for him, Dee was with Charlie, and there was no one else left. No one else left who loved either one of them. Just the accused.

...

“So how’s the reading going?” They see each other every Wednesday, so they just pick right up where they left off. 

“Not bad. The reading’s not as hard as the writing though, spelling’s all over the place man, it’s insane!”. 

Dee smiles at the way Charlie’s voice raises in pitch. It’s like that every time he gets excited, it’s always been like that. The continuity is comforting. 

“What happened to your face?”

Charlie’s question is innocent but Dee, haughtily takes her hand up to her lips, where she got a new filler two days ago. “Nothing happened to my face Charlie. My face is fine”. 

It’s more than fine. It’s gonna keep getting injected and cut up and sewn back together until she’s 21 years old again. Of course Charlie wouldn’t understand. He’s always looked the same. Dennis would get it. 

She changes the subject. 

“They freed up the money, you know. Dennis’ share all goes to Brian Jr, ain’t that a bitch. Mac’s money goes to his mom, that whore, since he didn’t have a will either. But you know what Charlie? I bet he would have left you some if he’d made one” Charlie smiles crookedly, “that’s a nice thing to say Dee”.

They sit for a while in comfortable silence. It’s like they were at Paddy’s again, sitting at the bar and sipping on their beers, Mac and Dennis playing pool in the back, bickering the whole time, Frank napping in a booth. 

“Do you miss them?” Dee asks, without knowing why. 

“I miss Mac and Frank all the time dude. I named the spider that lives in my cell after Mac so that’s good. I talk to them you know? In my head. Mac’s really living it up in heaven. And Dennis, I guess, but now when I think of him all I see is him frantically trying to get rid of Mac’s body, you know? It’s not a good memory. I still miss him though. Yeah, I guess”. 

They sit in silence a bit more. “How about you?” 

Dee feels not a sliver of a doubt as she spits out 

“I don’t miss any of those assholes, not now, not ever. Not even Dennis, as far as I’m concerned you were right to kill him. He was a real piece of shit, and we’re much better off without them, the whole lot”. 

Charlie sighs.

“Yeah... I guess”.

He remembers a time when Dee didn’t used to be so bitter. When she gave a shit. When did it happen? When did they succeed in destroying the last dregs of her humanity? He doesn’t think you can come back from that. Maybe now that it was only them they could patch everything back up? Go back to being Dirtgrub and the Aluminum Monster, looking down at the cool kids from the bleachers? 

Too late. 

Too much shit had gone down between them. So he left that thought alone, in the crowded corner of his mind where he put all his broken dreams, memories and aspirations.

  
  
  
  


It should have been him and Mac. If someone was gonna survive this, it should have been him and Mac.

  
  
  
  


“Oh! I brought you something!” Dee says getting a small black book out of her Louis Vuitton handbag, holding it with the tips of her fingers and wrinkling her nose.

“Hey! It’s Mac’s sticky bible!”

“Yeah well I threw out most of their stuff but I thought maybe you’d want this, to remember him by”

Charlie opens a page at random. There’s something written in the margin, but he can’t read it yet, so he shows it to Dee 

“What’s this say?” 

Dee scrunches her face and looks at the page for a long time before answering. 

“Well, the verse he circled says: _Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven._

And then in the margin Mac wrote: 

_Possible loophole: maybe Den can get to heaven and b the least??? If he can’t then better not to go 2 heaven. Note: figure out a way 2 get to where he’s going._ ”

“Huh”

“He was a strange, strange man Charlie”

The guards are rounding up the prisoners, it’s time to go.

“So, see you next Wednesday?”

“Just like every Wednesday”

Dee and Charlie share a sad smile.

“It’s gonna be alright Charlie, you know?”

“Yeah.

Yeah, we’re gonna be alright”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... The Macdennis fics I most enjoy are the ones where they fall in love and everything is alright by the end. I did not write that fic. This was inspired by the best fanfic I've ever read (macdennis or otherwise). It's been erased, or I can't find it, but it had Cricket in a starring role. If you read it you know the one. I was actually half relieved that they stopped writing it, because despite it being one of the best pieces of writing I've ever read it was completely destroying my heart. So I guess I wrote something sad too, though, for me, it can't be that sad if Mac and Dennis are together, and I hope that they learn to love each other and maybe ascend to a better afterlife together. 
> 
> I'm writing a sort of apology happy and fluffy macdennis fic, just to make up for this. Please tell me what you thought of the whole thing, feedback is so appreciated, even if it's bad.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll try to update weekly! thanks for reading <3


End file.
